I know this is not the usual food review, but I thought I would go on my blog and write a small reflection from today. There are many times I have said I am thankful, but maybe not have felt it as deeply in my soul. However, today was different. To be frank, this blog began as a way for me to address how lost I felt when I first got to Rome as a newly graduated 22 year old. Two years have passed and I just turned 24! So much has happened!
Today Pope Leo XIV was elected. Maybe in the coming days everyone will re-watch the videos and notice what I was so blessed to witness in person at the Vatican today! I saw someone who was deeply moved at the crowd before him, and at times I thought I saw a man who was tearing up. It takes a different level of emotional strength not to cry or choke up, I was simply standing and watching and felt myself deeply moved.
I heard two girls grumble in Italian upset about an American pope. I myself was very excited and happy. Paolo was happy and laughed that everyone said an American was impossible and would never happen. However, when it came time for the Urbi et Orbi, it finally hit me. I felt somehow like I was in the right place. I always questioned if going to Rome was the right decision and whether I “should have” went to the Dominican House in DC instead. Up until this point I was lost, but suddenly I was exactly where I needed to be.
I didn’t know what I was really doing by studying spiritual theology and getting a doctorate beyond trusting that eventually God would illuminate the path. God has taught me very much about patience. This summer I will begin my first of four summer internships for my Clinical Pastoral Education Units at Providence Mission Viejo Hospital. It is a level II trauma center for adults and children. I will continue to push hard and study well! My dream is to work in a hospital and answer the Church’s call to giving dignity and respect to all human beings receiving medical care in hospitals and provide proper Catholic spiritual care and direction. I truly believe spiritual care understands the metaphysical reality that medicine sometimes falls short. To listen and talk to patients and/or their families makes a world of a difference in affirming a patient’s dignity and respect, and I am so excited to be an average layperson aiding priests who administer the sacraments! A woman once asked me why I thought that I would be useful to give spiritual care if people usually want a priest. I laughed and shrugged that some people might have fun talking about food, art, culture, philosophy, or literature while waiting for a priest being in a room all day!
So, I am thankful today for my parents and grandparents who have worked so hard to build a life in America after losing everything in the Vietnam war to give me a life that perhaps is one of the most privileged in the world. I am thankful to my sisters who are on completely different paths than mine, but are there for me unconditionally. I am thankful to all of my teachers and professors for teaching me well. I am thankful to my friends for supporting me every step of the way and being so virtuous that I am always running to catch up on the path to virtue. Most of all I am thankful to God! Often times I am similar to the Israelites and I forget that Christ is always with me, so I have been lately repeated instead to the Lord, help me stay with You.
Also to those who are still reading this far, I hope you will consider perhaps getting more involved within your own communities whether that is with the school, city, diocese, or parish. Also for anyone interested in supporting the education of poor children: especially the education of young girls in Tanzania, please feel free to email me at nicoleinroma@gmail.com and I will connect you with my dear friend who is pastor and ambulance driver of his village! As a young asian american girl studying in Rome to the highest degree, I hope that girls in Tanzania also have opportunity to receive a higher education without being cut off due to financial constraints (and perhaps one of them will follow in my footsteps one day and study theology in rome too!)
Nicole in Rome 